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Summary Information

Abstract

Serge Prokofiev (1891–1953) was a Russian and Soviet composer, pianist and
conductor, and seminal figure in the history of twentieth-century music. The Serge
Prokofiev Archive (SPA) contains 58 original music manuscripts and over 10,000 letters
and documents primarily from 1918-1936, the years Prokofiev spent in the West. The SPA
also includes an expansive collection of music manuscript copies, published scores,
concert programs, scholarly books and articles, photographs, and audio and video
material, making it the premier research collection for studying Prokofiev's life, work
and legacy.

The SPA is closed to research while it is being catalogued (2015-2019). Each Series will
be open for research once cataloging is complete and the Finding Aid is made available
online.
The Serge Prokofiev Foundation Archive is accessed by arrangement with the Project
Archivist for the Prokofiev Archive
Natalia Ermolaev
email: ne99@columbia.edu
or the Performing Arts Curator:
Jennifer B. Lee
email: jbl100@columbia.edu
phone: 212-854-4048
This collection is located on-site.
More information »

Description

Scope and Content

Serge Prokofiev (1891–1953) was a Russian and Soviet composer, pianist and conductor,
and seminal figure in the history of twentieth-century music. The Serge Prokofiev
Archive (SPA) contains 58 original music manuscripts and approximately 12,000 letters and
documents primarily from 1918-1936, the years Prokofiev spent in the West. The SPA also
includes an expansive collection of music manuscript copies, published scores, concert
programs, scholarly books and articles, photographs, and audio and video material,
making it the premier research collection for studying Prokofiev's life, work and
legacy

Constituted in successive stages, this impressive collection was gathered by Prokofiev
himself, members of his family, and individuals dedicated to the composer's oeuvre. The
core consists of Prokofiev's compositions, writings and records from his prolonged stay
in the West - mainly the United States, France, and Germany - from 1918 to 1936. It
includes 58 manuscript scores, drafts, sketches and notes for works such as Symphony Nos. 3
and 4,
his operas The Gambler
and The Fiery Angel,
the Concerto
for Piano Nos. 4
and 5,
the ballets Sur le Borysthène
and Le Pas
d'Acier,
the Sonata for Two Violins
and
String Quartet No. 1.
Prokofiev's personal and
professional letters and documents from this period, totalling approximately 12,000 items,
inlcude correspondence with conductors Albert Coates, Sir Henry Wood, Sergei
Koussevitzky,Hermann Scherchen, and Ernest Ansermet; composers Igor Stravinsky and Nikolai
Miaskovsky; directors Vsevolod Meyerhold and Alexander Tairov; Ballets Russes impresario
Serge Diaghilev; and chess grandmaster Jose Capablanca. Prokofiev meticulously saved
bills, accounts and legal papers concerning concerts in the United States, France,
Italy, Spain, England, the Soviet Union, and Germany, as well as materials relating to
the publication and copyright of his work.

When Prokofiev returned to Moscow in 1936, he took only those papers and manuscripts he
judged necessary for his life in the Soviet Union. Everything else was left in the care
of close Parisian friends and his publisher, Édition Russe de Musique. Most of this
material was eventually deposited at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) in
Paris, where it remained until 2013.

In the 1970s, Lina Prokofiev, the composer's first wife, left the Soviet Union and
settled in the West. In the years that followed she devoted considerable energy to
tracking down the composer's personal effects and papers and to promoting his legacy.
She was able to access, and make photo and microfilm copies of, the Prokofiev material
at the BnF. In 1983, she created The Serge Prokofiev Foundation. After Mme. Prokofiev's
death in 1989, the musicologist Noëlle Mann continued this work, and in 1994 established
the Serge Prokofiev Archive (SPA) at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

For nearly two decades, the SPA at Goldsmiths served as the authoritative research
collection on Prokofiev in the West. It contained the copies of the Prokofiev materials
at the BnF, as well as copies of other Prokofiev manuscripts, letters, photographs, and
documents held in other repositories. The SPA gathered a vast collection of published
material on Prokofiev, including some 500 scores (including many rare and first
editions), nearly 500 concert programs, and over 400 books (mainly in English and
Russian, but also in French and German), periodicals and articles on Prokofiev. The
audiovisual collection contains almost 800 audio recordings on CD, LP and cassette, and
65 video/DVD recordings.

The Goldsmiths SPA also acquired archival material from the composer's family and
devoted supporters. Lina Prokofiev donated her own personal archive, which includes
materials gathered for a planned biography of her husband. Oleg Prokofiev, their younger
son, donated material relating to his own work and to his father's music. Smaller
archival collections added to the SPA archive include: the Georgii Gorchakov Collection,
the Christopher Palmer Collection, the Lázár Collection, the Sir Edward Downes
Collection, the Noëlle Mann Collection, and the Reberg Collection.

In 2013, the original Prokofiev material from the BnF and the Goldsmiths SPA were
brought together to form one coherent collection, currently on deposit at the Rare Books
and Manuscript Library at Columbia University.

The website of the Serge Prokofiev Foundation, www.sprkfv.net, contains further
information about the life and works of the composer and the Archive. There is also
information about the journal of the Prokofiev Foundation, Three Oranges
, including some sample full-text articles, and information
regarding subscriptions.

This series contains complete works, drafts, sketches, and notes for Prokofiev's
musical works: 58 original manuscripts, 153 photocopies, 105 microfilm, and 57
digital items. The material is dated as early as 1899 and as late as 1953, with
some items containing annotations added after Prokofiev's death.

The music manuscripts have been thoroughly cataloged to provide information about
format, genre, material features, and provenance. Terms include:

Document type: divides manuscripts based on whether they consist of notated music
or text.

Format: describes the technology used to produce each item as well as its stage of
publication (i.e manuscript, typescript, publication).

58 original items: complete works, drafts, sketches, and notes, dated from 1910
to 1934, many of which are written or annotated in Prokofiev's own hand.
Highlights include: the sketches, full score, and symphonic suite of The Prodigal Son,
sketches and full score of
Sur le Borysthène,
the full score of
Four Portraits
(symphonic suite from
The Gambler),
the original workings,
orchestral sketches and full score of Egyptian
Nights,
the draft full score of Symphony
No. 3
with references to The Fiery
Angel,
the original workings for the Symphonic Song,
sketches and drafts of Piano Concerto No. 4
and No. 5,
and scores for the piano pieces Choses en
soi,Two Sonatinas Op. 54,
and Thoughts
(or Pensées
) Op. 62.

The archive also contains three sketchbooks of musical ideas kept by Prokofiev
during the years 1919, 1929 and 1931, and four untitled folders of loose
sketches and notes.

This series contains approximately 12,000 items, mostly personal and professional correspondence, as well as financial records, notes, and miscellaneous documents. Most items are dated from Prokofiev's years living and traveling in Western Europe and America.

The majority of this subseries consists of letters, mostly to Serge Prokofiev, as well as drafts of his letters to others. Also included here are letters addressed to others (generally members of the Prokofiev family), as well as documents pertaining to them.

Also included are financial material such as bills and accounts, legal papers and correspondence concerning concerts in the USA, France, Italy, Spain, England, the Soviet Union and Germany; and the publication and copyright of Prokofiev's work. Individuals and companies with which Prokofiev dealt in these matters included musical societies such as the Aeolian Company in the USA, Concerts Populaires de
Bruxelles, and Concerts Pasdeloup in Paris; music publishers such as Breitkopf and
Härtel in Leipzig, Russicher Musikverlag in Berlin and Edition Russe de Musique in
Paris; and Soviet music publishing and arts authorities including the State
Publishing House, the Moscow and Leningrad conservatories, and the Direction of
State Theatres. There is also correspondence regarding the composition of ballets
and operas, notably The Love for Three Oranges, Chout, the Fiery Angel and Le Pas
d'Acier.

Materials are arranged in chronological order, with Day Month Year in the item title. Dates in brackets are implied. Missing or unidentifiable day, month, or year are rendered with "x." When the entire date is missing or unidentifiable, you will see "Unidentified Date" in the item title Letters with partially or fully unknown dates are cataloged at the end of the subseries.

To request an item, please order the box in which it is contained. Please note that the SPA does not hold originals of all items. If no Box/Folder designation is given, request the Goldsmiths Binder to consult a photocopy.

This series contains all published Prokofiev works in various editions, including
the collected editions of his works published by Belwin Mills and the Soviet State
Music Publishing House. The series also houses twenty-five (25) first editions or
otherwise rare scores (dating from 1923 onwards), including the vocal score first
edition of Love for Three Oranges, signed and annotated by Prokofiev.

Terms include:

Content type: describes the way the work is scored: full score, short score, piano
score, vocal score, miniature score, part(s), arrangement.

This series contains a rich collection secondary scholarly literature related to Serge Prokofiev, his musical or cultural context, and his influence on the history of music. It contains a total of 1,281 items: books, book sections, journal issues, and various types of articles. Special subseries are devoted to "Three Oranges," the journal published by the Serge Prokofiev Foundation from 2001-2016, "Sovetskaya muzyka" (Soviet Music), the main musicologial publication in the Soviet Union from 1933-1991, and "Opera," a monthly British magazine devoted to covering all things related to opera. Languages included are Russian, English, German, French, Japanese, Czech, Italian, Arabic, Dutch, and Norwegian.

Subject Headings

The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches at Columbia University through the Archival Collections Portal and through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, as well as ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.